Tech companies love to ponder the lack of women and they do take whatever actions seem logical to solve the issue. They contribute to girls-who-code programs, for instance. Occasionally, they resort to concrete measures to recruit more women.

LinkedIn looked at the rate at which men and women have been hired since 2008 across 12 industries worldwide — with a detailed look at leadership positions and software engineers.

The research shows some definite progress for women making their careers in tech (as well as other industries). But it also had a few depressing statistics for people who care about gender diversity in tech.

But that's still a pretty sad statistic, given that women make up half of the population. That still means that men are being hired for more than 8 out of every 10 tech jobs.

And it means that about 7 out of 10 leadership roles are still going to men, instead of women.

LinkedIn economist Guy Berger did find another ray of sunshine in the research. Across all roles at tech companies (including non-technical jobs) tech companies are hiring more women. 29% of jobs in the tech industry went to women in 2016, compared to 23% in 2008.

Dominic Ebenbichler/Reuters

That's a 24% improvement, which makes the tech industry the most-improved industry out of the 12 industries LinkedIn looked at.

The government/education/non-profit industry: 54%.

The retail/consumer products industry: 52%.

Software engineering jobs are not just for the tech industry per se. Every company serving any industry hires programmers. When looking at which industry were most likely to hire women software engineers, the good news is that all of them hired more women.

Healthcare and pharma came in second, with 24%, however this industry was also the least improved, in terms of hiring women programmers. That's a mere 1% over 2008.

Three industries came in with 22% of their programming jobs going to women: retail (up 3% over 2008), architecture and engineering (up 14%), and professional services (up 7%).

After looking at the data, LinkedIn concludes that while women are nabbing more jobs overall, companies are still mostly hiring men for leadership roles, and software engineering is still the most male world of them all.